Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The American Music Hall was among the first theatrical venues to open in the "new" theater district in Times Square, from its original base in Herald Square. Despite its "remote" location at 42nd and Eighth Avenue, the grand 2,065-seat Hall with a lush rooftop garden thrived upon opening in 1893.
Its debut musical, The Prodigal's Daughter, which opened in May 1893, featured 10 horses onstage.A Woman Of No Importance, 1893; Oliver Twist, 1895.
By 1929, American Music Hall had devolved into a vaudeville theater, and then a burlesque house and cinema—until a fire destroyed it in December 1930. It was razed in 1932. Below: today.